Utesheniye
Utesheniye is nestled in the foothills of the eastern Crown Mountains, in a fertile valley fed by the little river Vatenya. Sheltered by the vast aspen and conifer forests that stretch up into the highlands (and eastwards basically forever), Utesheniye is a community of about 500 souls: twenty families, give or take, live in the valley. Some are farmers, some trappers, others hunters and gatherers: hunting, bee-keeping, fishing, cereal and root crop cultivation, and stock breeding are the primary industries. Together, the community barely makes it through the worsening winters and the occasional visit by Fademen legates and taxmen. Some folk live in Utesheniye proper, some alone on homesteads in the valley and a few in steadings up in the highlands. The western end of the valley is dominated by a 50 foot waterfall created as the Vatenya comes rushing down the mountains. Timber is the paramount building material; furs, amber, honey, wax, and horn or antler products are the prime trade goods. The rivers overflow with fish, as do the many large and small lakes, while game of all kinds is readily available. The nearest settlement is northeast: Ras, a smaller logging village about three days away. The land northeast, east and southeast is dense forest crisscrossed by dozens of large and small rivers. Ras is more conveniently reached by the small boats which ply the rivers than by the muddy, often washed out roads that meander through the forest. Past Ras are three other villages: another five days east of Ras is Dal, a village not unlike Utesheniye but more agricultural; four days north of Ras is Uglich, another small hamlet (with a larger smithy); five days southeast of Utesheniye is Dvina-the-White, so called because of the white stone of the ruins of a pre-Rive city near Dvina. Two weeks northeast of Uglich s the large trade town of Gdov, in the forest-steppe; this area is more populated, completely under the control of the Fademen and their puppet barons. Another week north of Gdov is the open steppe and Zorya itself, queen of the steppe and the seat of control of the Fademen. The forest has a hard winter, with heavy snows, for a good five months. Rivers freeze solid enough to sleigh on (making travel easier than usual). Spring comes with a ferocious thaw and flood leading to a modest summer and a long, cool autumn. Travel follows the rivers. They form an interlocking grid, with well-established portages “bridging” the intervening strips of land. Most roads are abominable. Little more than muddy ruts in spring and autumn and dusty pathways in the summer, they vanish under winter’s snows. Everything is built from timber in Utesheniye. Most homes are timber frame houses (called klet or khata) with walls filled with clay and stucco. Almost all wooden structures and objects are richly decorated with carving and painting: noriks are particularly gifted carvers, even in this fading age. Most homes have a small nook dedicated to the family ancestors with small statues placed in tiny cabinets decorated and filled with flowers or other small offerings. There are a few large buildings in the main settlement: a large longhouse where the viche, or assembly, meets which also serves as feast hall, a winter hold and, as a last resort, a holdout to fall back on if raiders appear; there is also a communal meat storage building; a village granary and a mill. Dwarrow come down to trade occasionally; there is at least one large tribe of them a few days into the mountains. Brigands and marauders are a constant danger. In addition, representatives of the Fademen come down twice a year and collect taxes in kind; the current taxman is a brutal Yrk from Gdov who comes accompanied by twenty thugs and looks for any excuse to lash or beat anyone suspected of unlicensed ironwork, hoarding food or goods, owning books, etc. No Fademan legate has come down to Utesheniye for decades, although the village has been ravaged numerous times in those years by others.